Some shows wear their hearts on their sleeves. And then there’s “Les Misérables,” which is pretty much one giant heart that wears a musical on its sleeve.

So it might seem a surprise that in Lamb’s Players Theatre’s new production of this fervent and earnest and unabashedly passionate piece, one of the most memorable (even heart-stopping) moments is also one of the quietest.

It comes when Brandon Joel Maier, as the beleaguered convict-turned-hero Jean Valjean, sings the beautiful (and, for a vocalist, insanely demanding) high-tenor number “Bring Him Home,” and brings a hush over the audience. On opening night, you could’ve heard crickets, or a pin drop, or maybe a cricket dropping pins.

And yet that moment in some ways symbolizes the welcome intimacy of Lamb's accomplished and involving “Les Miz,” which the company is staging for the first time in its 350-seat Coronado theater.

The production puts playgoers right up against the barricades that are (eventually) manned by the flag-waving student revolutionaries who personify the show’s power-to-the-people vibe.

Director Robert Smyth has ingeniously arrayed the show’s excellent nine-member orchestra within that towering jumble of chairs, cabinets and boxes, a structure that dominates Mike Buckley’s intricately conceived set.

There’s really no space for elements such as the bridge that usually hosts a certain key scene involving Valjean’s tormentor, Inspector Javert (Randall Dodge, who’s in his deep-voiced and authoritative element). So instead the climactic moment is staged in a simple yet breathtaking way that’s a gut-check for both actor and audience. (No spoiling the secret here.)

Given that “Les Miz” obviously is no small-scale show — physically, emotionally or otherwise — some tradeoffs don’t work quite so winningly. It can feel as though the cast is shouting at the audience in some of the more full-forced numbers by creators Claude-Michel Shönberg and Alain Boublil (who based their 1985 work on Victor Hugo’s epic novel).

And when the battle scenes begin in Act 2, you can get the odd impression the rebels are trying to assassinate the band. (It’s kind of a musical-theater rule: Don’t shoot the flutist.)

What really makes this show storm past such (minor) obstacles is the extraordinary collection of talent it brings to the task — with (as Smyth noted in his preshow introduction) every member of the orchestra and 19-member cast hailing from San Diego.

That’s part of what makes Lamb’s, it deserves to be said, a local treasure. It’s a theater that can bring to its stage a young Broadway veteran such as Allie Trimm (“13,” “Bye Bye Birdie”), who actually did some of her earliest work here.

There are also standout performances from Charlene Koepf (Cosette), with a powerful soprano on “In My Life”; and Kelsey Venter (Fantine), who’s such an arresting presence on “I Dreamed a Dream” and other numbers that you wish she could dream up a way to stick around longer; and Deborah Gilmour Smyth and Neil Dale, near-perfection as the scheming Thénardiers on the comic rouser “Master of the House” (a scene that also spotlights Carlos Mendoza’s choreography and G. Scott Lacy’s musical direction.)

And those kids! Scotty Atienza is a fearless and funny audience favorite as Gavroche, while Hourie Klijian shows enormous vocal poise as the young Cosette. (Curiously, there is no young Eponine, which weakens the reversal-of-fortune dynamic between her and Cosette later in the show.)

In a show about the sufferings of the poor, it’s a wealth of talent that brings this one home.